The Ark-La-Tex Chapter of the American Meteorological Society held its 4th meeting of 2008 on August 19th at Carrabba's Italian Grill in Shreveport, LA. The meeting began at 715pm, with seven members present. This meeting was held to replace a meeting that was cancelled during severe weather season. The present members discussed current weather situations and possible topics for upcoming meetings in September and November.

Chapter President Jason Hansford suggested a tour of the Barksdale Air Force Base Facilities in Bossier City, LA for a meeting in either September or November. Members also discussed upcoming conferences with the National Weather Service.

The following members were present:

Jason Hansford (President)

Todd Warren (Vice President)

Marcy Novak (Secretary)

Leslie Sexton (Treasurer)

Doug Butts

Keith Stellman

Karen Stellman

The meeting adjourned at 845 pm.---Marcy Novak.

HIGH PLAINS

Ten members traveled from near and far to attend the August 7th High Plains Chapter meeting in Norton, KS. The group gathered at 11 am at Attitudes Restaurant for lunch, held a meeting, and then followed with presentations from each NWS office summarizing their recent severe weather season. For both the Dodge City (DDC) and Goodland (GLD) offices, the severe events of May 22nd-23rd climaxed their respective offices’ severe weather seasons. DDC had 61 tornadoes in their CWA during those two days, while GLD reported 21 tornadoes in their CWA. Of note, the widest tornado was 1.8 miles wide, in Clark County, and was rated EF3. Four other tornadoes were at least 0.9 miles wide. Those two days put both DDC and GLD above their yearly average for number of tornadoes. Farther east in Hastings’ (HSI) CWA, Spring and Summer were highlighted with flooding events. To date, HSI is 9 inches of rain above normal. April 25th was unique in that there was a tornado around midnight 3.5 miles north of Beloit, KS. May 29th was very active with 16 tornadoes, including an EF3 which struck Jewell, KS, and in Kearney, NE which was hit by 3 tornadoes! The North Platte (LBF) office was not in attendance and did not report a summary.

Call to order. The business meeting was called to order at 12:05 PM. After a round of introductions, Secretary Tim Burke read the minutes of the previous meeting. The minutes were accepted as read.

Treasurer’s report. Treasurer Matt Masek sent the treasurer’s report via email, and President Rick Ewald read the report. Basically, we have $4112.09 in our account; $940.00 in the Jim Johnson Scholarship fund, and $3172.09 in our checkbook.

Old Business. It is now looking doubtful the Wichita chapter will host one of our annual conferences, specifically the 2009 conference. If not, the LBF office should start planning ahead to host the 2009 conference. Our chapter did award this year’s Jim Johnson Scholarship to High School student Jordan Carroll. We will try to get his picture on the website as soon as possible.

New Business. Treasurer Matt Masek sent an email suggesting we should perhaps hold a teleconference Chapter meeting during the summer, with more members likely available to attend. We still need to meet (physically) at least 4 times per year, but this idea is worth looking into.

The 12th annual High Plains conference is set for Hays, KS September 4th-5th. It will be held at the Holidome Convention Center, 3603 Vine Street. All registration, lodging, agenda, and other information is available via our web site: www.highplains-amsnwa.org.

We had an overwhelming response to our Call for Papers, with over 30 abstracts submitted. To accommodate all who submitted, we cut each speaker’s time to 15 minutes (vs. 20), and shortened the breaks a bit. Look at our agenda – many great speakers will be there. Register NOW!

Adjournment. The meeting adjourned at 12:45 PM. The next meeting will be held during the conference in Hays.---Rick Ewald and Tim Burke.

We elected officers and had a membership drive. Our turn out was very high. We conducted several fund raisers throughout the school year and the summer. We plan to donate the money to hurricane victims. We have installed a weather station at our school. Jennifer Gray, NBC 6 meteorologist visited our school. She informed us about Broadcast Meterology and we got a tour of Hurricane Hummer. A few of our students had the opportunity to visit NBC 6 and shadow with Ms. Gray during her morning broadcasts. We had a very exciting year and we look forward to continuing our goals.---Casey Grenet.

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA - CHARLOTTE

8/26/08

Electronic Weather Wall

PowerPoint made for the Weather Wall Daily

And even post them on the ST.OR.M website

Newspaper

Get in touch with Jennifer York, fellow ST.OR.M member, about putting the weather forecast in the Newspaper.

We registered our organization with for us to be on the Student Organization Database, so ST.OR.M can be active on campus and receive funding from The Student Government Association (SGA). We also planned the first official ST.OR.M meeting for September 10th, 2008.---Travis Corbett.

UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO - MAYAGUEZ

We had our first monthly meeting of the semester on August 14 at 10:45 am. A total of 24 people attended. We discussed the activities that will be held during the semester. The meeting concluded at 11:45 am.

Hot Dogs Sale

We had a hot dogs sale on March 24th as a fund raising activity.

2nd General Assembly

On August 28th we had the 3rd General Assembly at 10:45 am in the Planetarium at the Physics Building. A total of 53 people attended including students, professors, and honorary members. The purpose of this general meeting was to present the UPRM Student Chapter to interested students from the UPRM University on joining the chapter. Our guests: Dr. Héctor Jiménez, Director of the Department of Physics, and the Meteorology Professors, Dr. Mark Jury and Dr. Luis Bejarano respectively talked about the Atmospheric Sciences Program of our university. Our chapter officers talked about the benefits and opportunities of being a member. During the assembly, the application forms of the Chapter and the National AMS were handed out to the students.

Summary of the Activity:

“Huracanes y Casa Segura” (Hurricanes and Safe Houses)

American Meteorology Society

UPRM- Student Chapter

Date of activity- July 28-Aug.3 of 2008

Place- Plaza Las Americas Mall, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico

Hurricanes and Safe Houses, is an educational campaign that two professionals in meteorology and architect, Ada Monson and Astrid Díaz has been working on for several years. Giving it serious and professionalism of the previous knowledge about hurricanes that has the people. Since they create it, it has been the most impressive campaign of Puerto Rico about teaching the people about how protect and prepare their families and houses for a natural phenomenon that causes disasters. Since years ago, this campaign is taking to a public place that all people can come and learn about it, a mall (Plaza Las Americas Mall in San Juan from july28- aug.3 2008). There, different agencies, and exhibitions related to protect lives and houses, inform and give talks and presentation to how get prepare for a disaster and how hurricanes form. For example, TV meteorologist, government agencies, State Agency for Emergency Management, private agencies, and many others groups. Our society was part of it, giving information about us, making demonstrations of meteorology, and talking about the meteorology program that the University of Puerto Rico, at Mayagüez has for college students. Many people were there and learn in an interested way, many things about meteorology and how protect themselves.